Oh, we do like to tease beside the seaside

Every autumn we go to the party conferences, which are usually held at seaside resorts. As we plod the corridors from one dreary debate to another ("Site value rating - has its time finally come?") we see in passing evidence of a brighter, happier world: posters advertise attractions that will arrive long after the conference has disbanded, often involving tribute bands (funny how you never see one offering "The Tartan Trews - bringing you all those great Bay City Rollers hits!") and ventriloquist acts, in which someone who looks like a child molester with toilet paper-stuffed cheeks appears with some hideous animaloid creature upholstered in nylon fur: "All next week: Charlie Chipchase with Pobbles! Book now, or rather, don't bother, there's no chance whatever of it being sold out."

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the two got confused. A party leader would be at the lectern banging on about "a new Britain, a modern Britain, a nation we can be proud of, where we reward enterprise but can find the time and resources to care for all" when suddenly Charlie Chipchase appears with, stuck on to the end of his arm, some horrible thing with a rictus smile, covered in some colour never found in nature, saying; "Hello, boys and girls! How are you? Say hello to Pobbles! Pobbles, say 'hello, prime minister'!"

"Ewoh, pime minner! Did you get that tan on holiday? Or did you just get your face stuck in the toaster? Hurr, hurr!"

We'd get very confused. As we were yesterday, when Iain Duncan Smith and his lovable puppet frog Freddie ("a laugh, a smile, and a great big gob") took the stage at prime minister's questions.

Mr Blair kept trying to be serious, but IDS and Freddie were determined to mock. They raised the subject of the NHS. Why were there now more managers in the service than there are beds? (Answer: it depends on what you call a manager. If you include the bloke who organises the cleaning rota, then you might be right.)

"Will you now confirm - cough - that half the extra money has not gone on imp-wurggh-roved treatment for patients?"

Of course the audience was loving this. But, baffled by the arrival of a vent act (the only one in Britain in which the puppet acts as the straight man), the prime minister desperately tried to keep going. "Virtually every indicator is moving in the right direction, precisely because of the extra investment we are putting in, and which you opposed," he said.

But it wasn't easy. He was sharing the stage with a practised comic turn.

"After all that nonsense," said Freddie (and you couldn't see Mr Duncan Smith's lips move, though in fact you rarely can), "it's no wonder that you are sponsored by the owner of the Fantasy Channel!"

This was a reference to Richard Desmond, who gave £100,000 to the Labour party and who is publisher of, among other organs, the Daily Express, Asian Babes, and Spunk-Lovin' Sluts.

I doubt if Mr Blair would know what a spunk-lovin' slut was, even if one came up and introduced herself. All he knows about is Blair-Lovin' Babes. They're lovely, they're glamorous, they gaze out adoringly, and their lips are permanently parted, ready to ask a sycophantic question. "Gorgeous Gabrielle's vital statistics are 36-24-37, which are the percentage reductions in hospital waiting lists in the three leading West Midlands trust areas ..."

Any moment now they are going to have to rename the back bench "the top shelf".

The vent act left, and Postman Pat arrived onstage with his black and white cat for a debate on rural post offices.